Court Upholds Another Class Action Lawsuit On Junk Faxes

According to The Howe & Hutton Report, an Illinois attorney is learning the hard way that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), prohibiting the sending of faxes to persons who have not consented in writing to receive them, can be used to send a very expensive lesson indeed.

A federal district court in Chicago has certified a class of plaintiffs who are allegedly unwilling recipients of junk faxes from the lawyer who used two outside companies to send the marketing materials. The court said the proposed class met the numerosity requirements of federal law; individual joinder of all the recipients would be impractical; there was a common nucleus of operative facts; and the class met other requirements for class action status.

Sending junk faxes in violation of the TCPA is exceedingly unwise. Each fax is a separate offense for damages purposes. The damages exposure can run into millions of dollars, even for small businesses defending class actions, the preferred vehicle for bringing TCPA claims. Illinois is a hotbed for such litigation.